There were a couple of posts that seemed to indicate that the real median household incomes might be skewed upward because of big gains among the wealthy. But the Median household income is the household in the middle of the income scale, i.e. rank all households from lowest income to highest income. The household in the dead center is the median household. So if the rich and super-rich were doing fantastically, it would not affect the median household statistic at all. (It would affect the average of course).
That said, I found it interesting and sad that the real median household income of non-seniors fell:
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Even the best number from yesterday’s Census Bureau report for 2005 is bad news for most Americans. It shows that <[real>] median income rose 1.1 percent last year, to $46,326, the first increase since it peaked in 1999. But the entire increase is attributable to the 23 million households headed by someone over age 65. So the gain is likely from investment income and Social Security, not wages and salaries.
For the other 91 million households, the median dropped, by half a percent, or $275. Incomes for the under-65 crowd were hurt by a decline in wages and salaries among full-time working men for the second year in a row, and among full-time working women for the third straight year. In all, median income for the under-65 group was $2,000 lower in 2005 than in 2001, when the last recession bottomed out.
New York Times Editorial, "Downward Mobility" 8/30/06
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/opinion/30wed1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin==========================================
Here's another note of concern from another source that I haven't checked out:
"The number of uninsured people climbed by 1.3 million in 2005 to 46.6 million, a record high. The percentage of people without insurance rose from 15.6 percent of the population to 15.9 percent. Both figures were substantially above the figures for the 2001 recession year, when 41.2 million people--14.6 percent of Americans--were uninsured."